Soul Vengeance
by Jessi - Princess of Impatience
Summary: One of Lucius’ greatest fears. 1997. Lucius.Narcissa, Severus, Draco, Bellatrix.Rodolphus, Voldemort, misc. Death Eaters. COMPLETED


**Title:** Soul Vengeance  
**Author:** Jessi  
**Characters:** Lucius/Narcissa, Severus, Draco, Bellatrix/Rodolphus, Voldemort, misc. Death Eaters  
**Summary:** One of Lucius' greatest fears. 1997.  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Word Count:** 2,252  
**Warnings:** Death  
**Notes:** Written to keep me from having a nightmare of my own and to be used for the fanfic100 and 7spells on LJ. Based on Makani's description of another of her Malfoy pieces, http:(BACKSLASH)(BACKSLASH)acciobrain(DOT)ligermagic(DOT)com(BACKSLASH)hpluciussad(DOT)jpg

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Free. The word itself was one Lucius could not voice aloud, as if doing so would make it all untrue. He was finally free of that accursed prison and its nightmares, even if they had only been in his mind. Even the Dementors could never have tormented him the way his own mind had in his darkest moments, drudging up nightmares of startling clarity to leave him actually _trembling_ in a cold sweat upon awaking. Cool poise had no place in the wake of images such as that, whether they were dreamed alone on a hard cot or amid satin sheets curled close to the soft, familiar form of his Narcissa. 

As he approached the circle of people before him, Lucius heard the words of death come from the lips of the Dark Lord and watched the green light illuminate the faces of those gathered. Blocked from his sight by the hulking form of Goyle was the victim and his identity, but there were several faces clear to him. Those on either side of the Dark Lord – Severus to his left and Rodolphus and Bellatrix to his right – were all maskless and looking upon the scene with something other than their normal detachment or pleasure at the kill. That fact alone froze Lucius in his place for a moment, knowing instinctively – even if those instincts had been dulled considerably by Azkaban – that something was _wrong_. There was too much harnessed emotion in those looks for this to be just anyone. Softly, his mind warned not to look over there, where all the others were looking, but he ignored it. 

Goyle moved slightly, enough that a head of blonde hair across the circle was now visible. With a terror that made him nearly ill right at that moment, Lucius knew who had been at the end of the Dark Lord's wand just by the expression on Draco's face as he stared down at the ground to his left. Lucius pushed his way between Goyle and Crabbe, as the soft voice in his head was now screaming not to look over _there_, where Draco's gazed was frozenly fixed on the ground. He shouldered MacNair aside as well so the final robed figure blocking him from the open space within the circle was removed. 

Severus stirred as Lucius broke through the circle of Death Eaters, and Lucius saw the pain in the dark depths of his friend's eyes, but he ignored it and ignored him because at last he could see the victim on the ground, the victim who was not a 'he' at all. 

The victim who was Narcissa. 

"Father," Draco whispered, his voice sounding hollow but anxious as he finally tore his gaze from his mother's body when Lucius fell to the ground beside her. Lucius ignored him as well, or rather, no longer heard him for his focus was only on the prone form on the ground, the elegant and lifeless figure of his beloved wife. Beloved, for if there was one pure thing within the darkened heart and soul of Lucius Malfoy, it was the love he held for the woman he now carefully gathered into his arms. He shook her slightly, automatically, as if that would rouse her or change the blank look on her features. She had not died afraid or crying, but with a regal composure in life that still lingered in death. 

He reached out, fingers that he did not even know were trembling gentle on her face as he touched her with a hesitance shown few times in his life. Fingertips rough from his imprisonment contacted with soft skin that emanated a trace of warmth as he looked down on her. Her pale complexion, tinted with a hint of pale rose when she was healthy, still held on to a vestige of that color. He knew, looking down at her, that the color would soon fade and her skin would turn to that translucent state it had when she was ill. Only this time, it would be the translucent expanse of death. 

Horror written clearly across his face, he moved his fingers along her jaw and higher, resting them on her cheekbones. Pale lashes nearly hooded her eyes, save for a small gap. Through it, he saw only a glimpse of the whites of her eyes veined with red, the only indication of any distress on her part. He rested two fingers slightly on first one eyelid and then the other, closing that small gap left in death. He tried to recall, for it seemed of utmost importance at this juncture, what her eyes had looked like in many situations, just as he had done so many times in Azkaban. Icy blue that was so very pale and cold as she leveled a withering look on someone beneath her while out in public, dancing and glittering sapphire as she laughed softly over some of Draco's antics over the years, deep and stormy cobalt as he brought her heady pleasures as they made love – anything but the thought of the empty blue of death. 

Dead. Dead and he had been unable to stop it. She was dead for Salazar only knew what reason… dead at the hands of someone he had worked for years to see succeed and now only wanted to kill. Lucius looked up then, the expression of shock and horror on his pale features grown even more pointed in Azkaban quickly replaced by one of sheer fury as he met the slitted red eyes of his lord and master. The smug smile on the Dark Lord's face only served to make everything within him increase a hundredfold, the hollow inside him that was growing with every second that ticked forward from Narcissa's loss quickly filling with the bubbling, white-hot liquid of unadulterated rage and pain. 

"How could you?" he ground out between clenched teeth. At the Dark Lord's side, Severus moved again and Lucius clearly recognized the lightening-swift look that crossed his friend's features as though Severus had spoken aloud. '_Say nothing, do nothing, or you will die as well._' 

Lucius found he could not care now if he died as he sneered hatefully back at Severus, who had failed to protect one of the two people more valuable to him than all else. So be it, as long as he took down the one who had killed the only pure thing to have ever touched his tainted existence. The man might as well have cut out his very heart, for it equated to the same thing at this moment. 

"Everything we _do_ is to rid the world of Muggle filth and you killed one of our own!" he growled, grey eyes flashing dangerously as he tightened his hold on Narcissa's limp frame. "She had done nothing to you, was nothing but loyal to the Cause. You killed my wife, you… you…THERE WAS NO REASON FOR HER TO DIE!" 

He knew he was yelling and he tensed unconsciously, his body preparing for the Killing Curse even as his mind continued to summon words for him to hurl from his lips at the Dark Lord. 

"She interfered, she went against my explicit orders," the Dark Lord said quietly, that smirk still firmly in place as he twirled his wand between long, skeletal digits. He inclined his head just slightly to his right, over Lucius' shoulder in Draco's direction. "And I don't have to stop there, my slippery friend." 

The words sounded almost amused, and laced with the tone of the same smugness that graced the Dark Lord's snake-like features. Lucius did not even look back to know who he was indicating. Even with Narcissa dead in his arms, he could not jeopardize his son more than he already had by the mistakes to their name. Still, even with that thought, he opened his mouth to shout, letting forth a string of incensed words that mixed with rarely spoken profanities. He screamed out his agony and rage as he locked eyes once more with the Dark Lord, deference and submission to his 'master' having died with Narcissa. 

The image that invaded his mind a second later was clear and distinct, one of the diary that had been given to the blood traitor's child. '_Payment exacted._' The words were in his own voice, not the Dark Lord's, nor was it necessary for them ever to be in the man's own voice. Lucius knew that Narcissa had paid the price for all of his failures. The destruction of a piece of the darkest wizard in history had been avenged with the destruction of a piece of Lucius. 

It was as though he had killed the other half of his soul with his own hands. 

Azkaban had not broken him of the motion of reaching for his wand in anger and more, but he did hesitate for it meant releasing Narcissa in even a small way in her current position. That was simply unacceptable, but his intent was clear to all as his eyes met the Dark Lord's once more, as demonstrated by Bellatrix's hand falling from where it had been pressed to her chest, as if to say or do something in intervention. It seemed even the Dark Lord's most loyal had finally seen the one thing that would make even her falter. 

Rodolphus grabbed her arm, a muscle in his jaw twitching visibly as he restrained Bellatrix, the same look of utter shock never leaving his face. Lucius' gaze left the Dark Lord and turned to Bellatrix and Rodolphus with all the cold accusation he could muster. They, their own family - her own _sister_ - had stood by and watched her be killed. Lucius wanted to murder them all for it, but instead he shifted Narcissa closer to him, pillowing her head against his chest just under his chin to prevent it from moving. Even now he took gentle care of her, hands that had been responsible for countless deaths - hands that had been responsible for _her_ death even without having held the wand that killed her – cradling her carefully as he slid a hand along her back towards where his wand normally resided in his robes. His fingers brushed against the scratchy material of imprisonment, probing for his wand. He would kill the Dark Lord for this, even if he died himself in the process. In his grief, grief like that which he had never experienced before, nothing else but that mattered. 

And yet, the wand rolling between those pale fingers never aimed at him despite his actions. The Dark Lord would let him live, for that would be a punishment far greater than death or torture could ever hope to be. He would _make_ Lucius live with this and Lucius knew that even should he draw his wand now, he would be disarmed – and _only_ disarmed. Hot tears slipped down his cheeks then, falling unnoticed as the wet stains appeared on the dark silk of the robes covering Narcissa's graceful figure. Never in his life had Lucius cried publicly, never more than once to his knowledge in Narcissa's presence, but now the tears did come. He bowed his head, lank strands of blond curtaining her from all but his view as he look down on her still face. 

"Without you, I am not free," he choked… and then he woke up, body coated in the cold sweat of his nightmare as his heart pounded viciously in his chest. He wiped at his face, staring around in the dark in a panic until his eyes adjusted to what he was seeing. His cell, in Azkaban. 

Hand to his heart, where the ache of all that he had experienced in his nightmare still resided, he struggled to get breath back into his body and felt weaker than he had in his life. At least, until he had come to Azkaban, a place where even the strongest could be broken and the way one was formerly had no meaning. All that mattered within these walls was who one was _now_. He would not allow this place to break him, though these vivid nightmares, of every one of his fears played out in ever imaginable way, threatened to do just that. 

It had just been a nightmare with so many tiny clues now that his slumbering mind had ignored. His presence among his master's followers still glad in the garb of Azkaban, seeking out a wand that had been destroyed by the Ministry with his incarceration, the fact hat he had lived through such an outburst and implied threat to the Dark Lord's life, seeing those stand by who would have saved her… yes, it was all but a nightmare, one thankfully ended for now. 

Free. That word, spoken aloud in his nightmare, had made his freedom untrue by waking him, just as he feared would someday occur when he was truly free. In these moments however, the ones following the very worst his mind offered, he was glad his freedom had been but part of one of his hideous nightmares. His family still in danger and they always had been, but his Narcissa, the half of his soul that was good, was still alive. 

As he sagged against the cold stone wall, his muscles still trembling faintly from the nightmare and partly from disuse, he vowed to find a way free of this place so any number of his nightmares did not become his waking life. 


End file.
